Uboa shares a live set on Behind The Mirror ahead of her Boorloo show

Uboa, the alias of Naarm/Melbourne-based sound artist Xandra Metcalfe is making the trip across the Nullarbor to perform at Badlands Bar accompanied by Territory, Flesh Prison, Puke and Doxx Ephemra.

Specialising in soundscapes built of crystalline digital ambience and harrowing walls of harsh noise, Uboa condenses her life experience as a trans-woman with vast and varied sound sources and influences.

Uboa chatted with RTRFM’s Nattljud about her workflow, collaboration with other artists and how she got started making music and performed a live, improvised set on Behind The Mirror. Check out their chat and the set below.

Nattljud: How did you become interested in creating death industrial and noise music? Is there much of a community in Naarm/Melbourne that you’re involved with or was it much more of a solo journey?

Uboa: I don’t really know how I got into it. I was always into heavy music since I was very young, and after not much luck with bands I did everything myself, and noise makes sense in a solo context. I’ve been making music alone in my room since I was a kid with very shitty software and composition and sound design was just something I naturally did. I kinda got over standard song structures after getting really in modern classical, improvisation and complex rhizomatic composition in general. Originally I only bumped into wall-like noise and I only really fell in love with the genre after seeing it mixed with more “musical” elements (ambient, for example) with a sense of composition and sound design. As with “death industrial”, it was a genre I’d never heard of until people started calling my music it online. I wasn’t super into the name at first – I think genres are impressionistic descriptions at best – but I kinda lean into it and now listen to other acts considered the same genre.

N: We’ve been fans of your music on Behind The Mirror for a little while now. I think we were all pretty excited to see you got signed to The Flenser. How has this new development changed your experience as an artist?

U: It’s pretty fucking wild to be signed in your favourite label. It’s admittedly a lot of pressure as I generally saw myself as a random local diy noise act. It’s made me more cautious about quality control too. It’s has opened up all sorts of opportunities that being DIY and broke never gave me – touring, vinyl releases, merch, wider promotion etc. It’s made me more able to deal with the attention I get and also take what I do more seriously and professionally.

N: The split EP with Bolt Gun showcases a really great match for a collaboration. How did the idea to produce this split EP come about?

U: They asked me. I’d been a fan since Man is Wolf to Man so I said yes quickly. They sent me their song and it was incredible and I felt I had to so something just as good and just as expansive in scope. My only issue with the release is I think I could have mixed my side better, especially with gain staging, eq, compression. I might remix my side eventually, as with a few of my older stuff from before I taught myself to ‘mix properly’. However I am still proud of the song.

N: Can you see yourself collaborating with other artists in the future?

U: I currently am, and there will be some very exciting collaborations on the upcoming record, plus many other collaborations and collaborative projects (Uboa and non-Uboa) in the works. I always like to do it as I learn from the other artist and make music I wouldn’t do myself usually. It’s also a form of profound friendship for me, you kinda get soul-bound for life when you do a big collaboration with somebody by bringing something new into the world that is beyond what either of you could do alone.

N: Do you find your musical workflow leans more towards meticulous production or towards organic improvisation?

U: I improvise, compose and do songwriting, so its both and then some. A lot my songs are modified live improvisations with compositional and production improvements over the original jam, so it is more compelling without the ‘visual’ performance aspect live (i.e. me flailing around on stage in silly outfits) with your headphones. Generally everything you hear recorded is ultimately composed with some of them – even those with aleatory elements have authorial control. An example would be the title track of The Origin of My Depression, which was a live zoom recording with vocals, synths and some noise overdubbed. I find recorded improvisation a good way of defeating writers block, especially the first steps of songwriting. It’s also why I don’t believe in the dichotomy of ‘live’ and ’studio’ recordings in my own work. It’s all Ableton and the process is less important than the final emotional result.

But some songs are more songwriting-like. An Angel of Great and Terrible Light and most of The Flesh of The World were written in Ableton piece by piece, similar to how most people do it.

Some of the hyper-complex noise songs (i.e. Thigh High Cat Tights) only (occasionally) are painstakingly arranged bit by bit, with seconds taking hours or days to compose, with samples from prior jams, video games and weird movies. It’s a more “modern-classical” and “breakcore” hybrid style of composition, although due to the absence of melody, harmony and rhythm a lot of it cannot be notated (and I can’t read music), even with graphic scores.

Of course, some songs use all three. The Slow Cancellation of the Future is one example. It’s good to mix the more complex compositions with more standard ones for contrast, and combine all three methods to creative a diversity of song structures.

N: You’re playing at Badlands on Saturday, August 26. What can we expect to see from a Uboa live show?

U: It’s mostly improvised but with careful planning when it comes to sample use, Ableton live session setup, sound design, synth patches, choosing some loose lyrics etc. It’s improvised but planned if that makes sense.

A lot of my songs are too rhizomatic be reproduced 1:1 live (at least without karaoke, which I generally try to minimise) so I have to reimagine something similar, say with the same samples and techniques. I generally have an overall arc of the set so it’s one big thing where everything blends together. So I don’t really know what either me or the audience is to expect, as I often use the vibes of the night to live-compose.

I generally don’t see much point of an artist reproducing its studio work live. It usually sounds worse. After seeing Swans live a few times when I was younger and saw how the songs were often quite different every time, I thought that there’s something magical about seeing a song composed right in front of you thats unique to the night – or if its recorded you get to see a song being born. Even when I do play recordings live they are dramatically different anyway.

So every set is absolutely unique, even if I were to use the same samples. I always found it boring to practice the same song endlessly. I am an audience member at my shows too and unfortunately I always have to turn up to them. Plus admittedly I am not the best at remembering my own lyrics (lol)…

Catch Uboa at Badlands Bar on Saturday, August 26.